Slave Island

Few neighbourhood names carry as much weight, or as much dispute over their origin, as Slave Island. Sitting on what was once a small peninsula enclosed by Beira Lake, the district’s difficult colonial-era name has finally begun to fade from official use, even as its layered, multicultural character remains one of the more genuinely interesting corners of central Colombo.

A Difficult Name, A Disputed Origin

Accounts of exactly why this area came to be known as Slave Island vary, and historians don’t fully agree on the details. The most commonly repeated explanation ties the name to the Dutch East India Company’s practice of confining enslaved people, many originally brought from East Africa as “Kaffirs,” on what was then a genuine island, cut off from the mainland and surrounded by the waters of Beira Lake, reportedly stocked with crocodiles to prevent escape. Some accounts connect the naming specifically to a 1723 uprising in which enslaved domestic workers killed a Dutch fiscal officer and his wife, though later historical research has questioned whether that incident is actually linked to the area’s naming, noting that the earliest recorded use of “Island of Slaves” dates to 1704, potentially predating that event.

Whatever its precise origin, the name stuck through Dutch and then British colonial administration, eventually attaching itself to the local railway station, post office, and public offices, and from there to the neighbourhood as a whole. In 2023, Sri Lankan authorities officially dropped the name Slave Island in favour of the long-used local Sinhala name, Kompanna Veediya, meaning “Company Street,” a reference to the same Dutch East India Company history from a different angle.

A Genuinely Multicultural District

Beyond its name, what makes the neighbourhood interesting is its layered ethnic history. Under Dutch and later British rule, the area became home not only to enslaved and formerly enslaved communities but also to Malay and Javanese soldiers brought over to serve in colonial regiments, whose descendants still form part of the district’s Muslim community today. Street names like Java Lane and Malay Street are direct references to that heritage, even as redevelopment has physically erased much of the built environment those names originally described.

Today the neighbourhood mixes older mosques, Hindu temples and colonial-era buildings with contemporary high-rise towers, a visible sign of the intense property development pressure the area has faced in recent decades. That pressure has come with real social cost: long-standing residents, many from lower-income Malay, Tamil and Muslim communities, have faced eviction and relocation as land values in this centrally located district have risen sharply.

Visiting Tips

• Approach the area with awareness of its difficult history rather than treating the old name as simply a quirky trivia fact.
• The neighbourhood works well as a walking connector between Beira Lake, Galle Face Green, and Fort rather than a single standalone stop.
• Look out for the contrast between older mosques and temples and the newer high-rise towers now dominating parts of the skyline.

Where It Sits on the Map

Frequently Asked Questions

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